Huntress
by Jesiryu
Summary: This is a companion piece to 'Undecided' and should be considered as part of Maive Shadesinger's backstory. No spoilers for the Sookieverse contained here.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note : I'm submitting this as a companion piece to my fanfiction 'Undecided' but it really isn't part of the Sookieverse, at least not yet. I actually wrote this a few years back as a spur of the moment idea from one of my friends back in HS, although I forget what the coversation was about. For those of you who have been reading 'Undecided', this is / can be considered part of Maive Shadesinger's backstory. She was adopted by Phillip Kundry not long after this takes place.

As always, thanks for reading.

* * *

Legends and myths all have some base in truth and fact. It is when the two realms become entwined and indistinguishable that many a brave man can't sleep well at night.

I hunt these ambiguities.

It all began the day I was born. I didn't know then, couldn't have known. Neither did my parents know, nor do they still. I intend to keep it that way.

Every few generations the genes for a hunter come together, by fate or destiny or random chance. Almost all of the time now, those few are noted at a young age and trained by the believers to fulfill their potential completely.

I am a mistake.

My parents' parents' parents' and so on can each be traced back to belonging to a specific pagan group that became the current trainers of the various hunters and huntresses that have cropped up over the years. It is entirely improbable that two people with such backgrounds that neither knew about would come together and have a child who would receive the necessary genes to become a Hunter.

Well, Huntress.

But it did happen. And I am discovering the greatest secret that we have always kept.

We don't need training to follow our destiny.

* * * * * *

When I turned thirteen I began to feel the lust. It was faint then, only a stirring every so often. I knew there was evil in the world but I did not know my fate would tie me to it just yet.

I attributed the urges and feelings to an early onset of hormones until I was fourteen. Several times, beginning at that age, I had woken up with blood on my body but with no discernible cuts it might have come from. The blood was not my own. I still don't remember the first time I hunted, and probably never will. But the second time I remembered more. And then again, and again, until I could no longer tell myself it was all in my mind.

I began researching many of the myths you are no doubt acquainted with. It was my hope to become familiar with them so that I might puzzle out what I was…am.

No doubt you have heard of vampires, werewolves, witches and warlocks, demons and fairies. No doubt you have been told they are no more than myth, no more than stories, nothing that was true or could cause you harm.

I'm letting you know right now the people who told you this were lying.

My first assumption was that I might be a vampire or some other kind of blood-drinker, due to the presence of blood on my clothing. But I was no vampire, because sunlight did not cause me even mild discomfort.

I did notice I was able to see much better by moonlight than in the rays of the sun.

My next thoughts were that I was werewolf, but not all of the incidents of groggy memories and dried blood occurred on nights of a full moon. And so I went through the rest of my accumulated lists, and still found nothing that struck me as being my answer.

It finally happened one time that I was fully conscious when I changed form.

I was fifteen. I had been feeling a blood lust of sorts for almost a year and had been waking up more times than I care to remember with blood on my hands. (Actually, it was probably only a half-dozen times, but it seemed like more.) The night that I remember we were playing jailbreak. It was probably sometime around 11 PM on a cool night in June. I was on the "cops" side, trying to find the "robbers" and catch them to throw them in "jail." Where I was precisely was the neighborhood park.

It was rare that people would hide in such a wide open space, but something told me someone would be there and that I had to catch them. Little did I know why.

I was sitting quietly by the picnic tables, the best vantage point for the rest of the area. Out on the edge of my peripheral vision I saw a shadow flit by. Quietly, I turned towards it, seeking out the hiding place my robber had dodged into. But I saw nothing.

Or did I?

My eyes narrowed as I considered the gaps between the branches of the pine trees that lined the edge of the fence surrounding the park. I didn't move, refused to, knowing instinctively that to move would be a forfeit of the encounter. If I noticed that it seemed to be getting brighter the longer I stared, it was with a part of my mind that had already shifted conscious.

The robber was inhumanly still. By the time I could pick out his outline, I knew there was no way he was anyone I knew. Only in the back of my mind did I realize that I was being just as still, and that it should be considered just as odd. My first rational thoughts were that it was a random person who did not belong in the neighborhood, perhaps one of the petty-thieves we'd been hearing reports of. But that seemed odd, since the burglaries had been reported to have taken place between 2 and 4 AM. So I waited.

As more time went by the hairs on the back of my neck began to stand up. Something felt wrong and it wasn't a pleasant sensation. I began to wonder if I had been imagining my adversary, and also to think it was odd that no one else had come into the park looking for me. Enough time had gone by that a few robbers had no doubt been caught or escaped and found new hiding places. Someone else should have come looking.

Most likely they had sensed the evil and simply stayed away. Humans do have an uncanny knack for self preservation.

Finally though, my patience paid off. The being between the branches moved and at first I was relieved. I wasn't crazy at all. But then I realized that it could not be human.

I watched as it silently jumped up and over the trees and came at me with more speed than I thought even a cheetah could muster.

A hand snaked out too fast for me to see and grasped my throat, dragging me out from my shelter. I looked up into glowing eyes and knew without a doubt that this being was evil. And it meant to kill me.

"You…" Its voice was raspy, and I found myself surprised it could speak at all. Darkness (or maybe it was fur) covered its whole body. Its limbs were long but its torso short. I would swear it had two horns protruding from its angled forehead. The grip around my throat betrayed a strength that the creature should not have had. It was unnatural.

And it knew me.

"You have the smell of the Hunt on you." He raised me higher into the air and brought me close to his face. The creature inhaled deeply. "But you are no Master."

"I am my own Master." The thought popped into my mind and was out of my mouth before I could even process what I was saying.

I dropped to the ground in a heap. Apparently my speech had startled the creature, which was something out of legend but so real it could not be an apparition.

"How is it you speak? Hatchlings cannot speak. You can't speak."

"What is a hatchling?"

The creature retreated a step. "One who has been claimed by a Master. All my hatchlings are dead. The Hunter killed them." It dropped to the ground on all fours to sniff at me again. "Not a Master, not a Hatchling, has the smell of the Hunt…"

It words were confusing, but I thought I might know the meaning to them. It seemed so clear. I was not surprised when it next said, "You are the Hunter."

Before another word could be spoken one of its arms shot outwards and raked my torso with its claws. The cuts were deep and hurt more than I thought anything could ever hurt. But the pain brought clarity, brought my human instincts to the fore, my will to live. I felt the change.

First I felt the speed. I rolled up and over my shoulder, landing with precision on the balls of my feet. Before the creature had a chance to react I was diving towards him in the air, no longer helpless on the ground.

Second was the strength. My hands –I looked down, they were more like claws— shot towards the creature and gripped his arms below his shoulders. I spun him around and wrapped him in an embrace that he could not break. "No!" _Was that me or him?_

Third I felt the conscious. I knew what he was, this demon. I knew that I had hunted his hatchlings for the past few months. Killed them, so that their family could not grow. This was the Master. He was mine.

His fur began to glow with an unearthly illumination, as though some sort of energy that the creature possessed was manifesting itself as a kind of light. My lips locked onto its neck, but my teeth did not enter his body. I was no vampire. I was Huntress. And as a Huntress, I would eat what gave him his power, what my presence had brought out of him for the taking.

I would consume his soul.

It was over quickly. He was a weak Master and did not have much strength in him after the months of avoiding me. Yes, it was me that had been hunting him, I could remember that now. And here he just gave himself to me, thinking that I was a silly human girl he could corrupt and use as currency in his transactions with the Dark. The last of the glow disappeared now; I had stolen all his currency. Souls, after all, are the only money Evil ever desires.

What became of the creature, I do not know. After I consume their souls the evil are free to do what they please, though they are no longer able to create more of their kind. They still owe favors to their Masters, however. And most of these can never be repaid after I take the one thing they possessed that had value.

When they die, truly die, their Master must take such sweet vengeance on them. I have always hoped so, because I know one day I will join them.

Silently, I left the park. My hearing was excellent, my sight near perfect. Smells wrapped around me and carried tales of where I might find other beings of evil. But no demons. If I wished to hunt more that night, humans would have been my prey. Corrupt humans. The fact that I remembered their flavor disturbed me. I had eaten human souls before. This was something I would have to consider. Are corrupt humans truly evil?

Questions for another day. I became more focused to trying out my new powers from the new soul I had absorbed. My speed seemed the same, so did my other senses… What was it that demon had been good at?

The image of him leaping over the trees popped into my mind. I smiled, gathered my feet beneath me, and jumped.

I landed on the roof of a single story house across the road.

This was good. A good ability. Worth the near death to get it. I glanced down at my cuts and was relieved to see they had closed and were no longer bleeding freely. The creature must have had a good healing power. Another useful trait. A good night.

Something moved down the street. My focus shifted, my mind trying to determine what might be milling about at 11:40 at night. Then I remembered. A game. My friends. They would be looking for me.

I dropped to the ground lightly. Thinking of my friends made it easy to focus on changing back into my human form. Luckily my Huntress body was no larger, and my clothes were not shredded.

Actually they were. I glanced down and squinted. Already I missed my better sight. But that wasn't the problem now. I had to figure out what to do about my slashed and blood stained t-shirt. I couldn't let the others see me like this.

Fortunately I did not need to be in my other form to sneak by the various cops and robbers that littered the street. I was in my house, changed, and back outside before another five minutes had passed.

"Guys?"

A hand reached out from a shadow near the door as a voice yelled, "1-2-3-you're-my-man-no-breaksies!"

I'd forgotten that based on the time that had gone by my team would most likely now be the robbers. My chest heaved in a sigh. "You got me, you got me. Doesn't someone want to come and save me?!" The last was ended in a shout to the rest of my team, but I knew that in this game there were few who liked to take risks to get their friends out of jail. Only the cops could work together. Not the robbers.

It was ironic then, that as a Huntress I was the only cop, to the unity of all the robbers out in the world. But I could handle it. After all, my learning had only just begun.

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Reviews are most welcome.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note : Next chapter will contain some direct ties to the Sookieverse but I wanted to post this bit first. For those of you reading this as well as 'Undecided', this takes place about seven years prior. The Huntress's training will also be expanded on in the next installment. For now, just keep in mind that the young Huntress is cocky and high-handed. I apologize for the typical "orphan hero/ine" routine, but it was the simpliest explanation of why she would be desperate for a farther-daughter relationship with Philip Kundry that develops later.

* * *

"Hello, young lady. My name is Philip Kundry."

My life had become something of a horror story in the past three years. Well, more of a horror story. After all I had been destroying the minions of corruption since I was fifteen.

I didn't answer the man talking to me. I never answered anyone after they put me in here when my family had been killed. My carelessness had led to their brutal deaths and that was something I would always carry with me, but right now I was more interested in my internal musings than whatever this stranger had to say. I wondered if someday soon I might be able to fully resist the beast inside me but until then I had no interest in the outside world. Especially not in the form of men named Philip Kundry.

He looked at me in open disappointment when I didn't reply. "I see you have not accepted your nature."

Okay, that got my attention. I was in a facility for dangerous children or something similar in purpose. They didn't actually tell me the name of this place when they brought me here in the days after my parents' deaths. I only knew that it had been over two years because one of the 'doctors' slipped and wished me a happy 2nd anniversary not long ago. None of the staff fully understood that I could have left easily if I chose to.

I met the man's eyes and saw a brief smile tug on the right corner of his mouth. He controlled it hastily. "Ah, so you are not the deaf and mute creature written of on your chart sheets. How gratifying."

_Congratulations, funny man. You have a brain,_ I thought sarcastically. I didn't allow myself to react to his words either, beyond the intensity of my emerald stare.

"Stubborn aren't you," he said as he leaned forward, only stopping when his face was mere inches from mine. I couldn't resist as a feral smile stretched across my face. The man, Philip Kundry, grinned right back. "Good, maybe you'll decide to trust me sooner than I feared. We need to get you out of here."

My smile froze on my face. I knew what it would take for me to escape and I simply would not do it. I would not transform again. And I also knew that it would take a miracle for the ones in charge of this place to be convinced they could let me go.

Kundry nodded, never taking his eyes from mine. "Yes, stubborn as a mule. We'll see just what it takes to get you to give in." I had actually pulled away from him in the past few moments and he leaned forward further to close the distance between our faces again. "Do you know how long you can resist it? If I bring you a demon, and put it with you in this room, will you really allow it to kill you rather than embrace what you are? Are you ready to die, little girl? Or would you like to actually learn how to control your gift?"

I didn't want to react to his words but I'm sure he saw the hunger in my gaze. Was he lying? Or did he really know how to teach me to control myself? It was safer to believe he was lying. Too much pain waited on the other path if it turned out to be false.

"I see I will have to gain your trust," Kundry said astutely. My estimation of him rose but my willingness to believe him remained entirely skeptical. "But I would like to see how much control you have. Expect a visitor tonight. If you choose to save yourself I will assume you are agreeing to be my apprentice. If you let yourself be destroyed, well, hopefully there will be another one of you soon." He stood and moved towards the door, leaving me to ponder his question.

The orderlies opened the door to let him pass but he hesitated at the threshold. "You are a rare bloom, you know. It would be a shame if you were clipped before you had a chance to blossom."

I heard the click of the locks but I was back in my own little world before the last one snapped into place. The hours passed slowly as I considered what Kundry had said to me. I did have to admit I was bored staying in this tiny room reliving my memories from my so-called normal life. And there had been something exhilarating in those first months of discovery when I began hunting consciously. The rush of battle was not something I could have anticipated before experiencing it and in many ways I missed the thrill. I also missed sunlight, Burger King, and all things chocolate. I missed reading books. I missed looking up at the stars on clear nights. I missed my friends…

Thinking of my friends jarred me out of my inner world. They had moved on by now. Some would have graduated and begun attending college. Others would be working or finishing up high-school. But none of them visited any more. I was lost in the past and it was too much effort for them to remember me as they moved on in their lives. I usually got Christmas cards though, that had to be something.

By the time the sun had set and the guards outside changed shifts I knew what I would do if Kundry came back with a demon. It was time to let go of the past, the hurt, the guilt, and try and find something to do with my life. If I could control this thing inside me I could be normal, or at least as normal as I could ever hope to be. If not, I'll just let one of the damn things kill me one day.

The lights winked out suddenly and I could no longer see the outlines of my room. I assumed this was intentional and not an emergency failure. Soon I would have to execute my choice, if I could. It occurred to me that I hadn't exercised much in the last two years and I might be too weak to fight off what gets throws at me.

I heard breathing. The door hadn't opened so I had to assume that whatever was now in my room had the ability to turn incorporeal or to teleport. Neither would surprise me.

My human instincts were screaming in terror at the darkness but my other instincts were reaching out for the transformations. I let my eyes shift but resisted the other changes. I wanted to see what kind of challenge Kundry had given me.

It was beautiful. I had expected it to be repulsive but instead I found myself staring into the eyes of a creature that held me in raptures. It was humanoid but clearly not human as it floated gently in the air. The wispiness of its form led me to believe it could become incorporeal. A potential problem.

Suddenly I felt the human part of me lurch with a surge of lust. I had not been a 'proper' young lady since I was sixteen and being celibate for two years doesn't make you forget what sex feels like, it just makes you miss it that much more. Now that the creature had my undivided attention I considered letting myself shift more into my other form just to get away from the overwhelming desire.

But that would be too easy and I still hadn't puzzled out what it was. I clamped down on the urge to throw myself at it while I racked my memory. If it was female I would have instantly said succubus but I didn't think succubi worked on same-sex targets. My brain fart finally gave way to a rush of remembrance when the name for the male counter-part to a succubus popped into my head. Incubus.

So, this was an incubus. I gave it another once-over as it came closer to me. I hadn't been sure it noticed me until that point but my intensifying wanting seemed to beckon it closer. Finally it was close enough that if my hands weren't bound in manacles (cloth ones, they weren't excessively cruel here) I would have been able to wrap my arms around it. I wasn't too sure what touching it would do to me so I resisted the urge to lift my hands.

The incubus leaned closer and sniffed. If I hadn't been so busy trying to control my desire for this creature I would have smiled. Instead I focused my remaining concentration on shifting my lungs and one other part of me. I had always wondered at my ability to create something that wasn't there but this wasn't a good time to ponder the question. It worked and for now that was all that mattered.

As the creature leaned forward to touch me I used my new anatomy to secrete a natural form of nerve gas that would paralyze the creature, or so I hoped.

It worked beautifully. I knew the moment the creature inhaled the fumes because its eyes glassed over immediately. Have I mentioned the eyes were the size of half-dollars and iridescent? Yeah, it was kind of hard to miss the reaction.

I smiled as it collapsed at my feet. Now Kundry would have to wonder just what I had done to incapacitate it without even shifting my form. The changes to my eyes might be visible if they were using special cameras, but I doubted it. And I knew the transformation to my lungs and the addition of the pheromone releasing sac were invisible to the naked eye. Hopefully I had given them a set of problems they weren't prepared to deal with.

****************************************

"You see what she did?"

"No, I missed it. Her self-control is obviously greater than we anticipated."

"Best guess?"

"Either she hypnotized the damn thing or she did something too fast for us to see."

"Not possible on that second part. We're using as many types of cameras as we can and one was specifically brought here to capture slow motion in high detail. You can re-watch the footage if you want but I didn't see it catch anything."

"So she hypnotized it."

"Maybe. We should have tried to compile a list of her abilities before this."

"We've never had to deal with something like this in a Hunter, remember? How could we have known that she'd already have such an arsenal."

"Common sense I guess, but hindsight is 20-20. How many demons do they think she's killed?"

"At least two dozen."

"So she should theoretically have at least twenty-four unique abilities."

There was a pause in the dialogue as the two men looked at each other, lost in their thoughts.

"I'll be back," said Kundry as he turned to leave the observation room.

"You're going down there?" asked Marcus, a bit incredulously. "What if she's controlling that thing? Do you think she might kill you?"

Kundry thought a moment. "Possibly, but I tend to think she's trying to teach us a lesson."

Marcus looked insulted. "And what in God's name would she be trying to teach us?"

"That she doesn't intend to play by our rules if it doesn't suit her."

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Reviews are most welcome.


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